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Allen Ginsberg Beat Memories ALLEN GINSBERG BEAT MEMORIES Exhibition diChromA photography TECHNICAL DETAILS Contents 80 b&w photographs .Unframed Part of the photographs contains the original caption wrote by A.Ginsberg and signed. Size of Works From Photo Blooth size to 50x60cm Conditions Unframed Transport From Madrid Rental Conditions The borrower will be in charge of: -The transport from and to Madrid -The insurance, nail to nail -Travel and journey of the curator for the installation and opening Availability From September 2011 Contact Anne Morin [email protected] Herbert Huncke, 1950’s © Allen Ginsberg Jack Kerouac, 1953 Rebecca Ginsberg, my paternal grandmother, R.Frank photographing Allen Ginsberg for Collected Poems”1984 Paterson, New Jersey, 1953 diChroma photography Paseo de los Parques, 27-8B 28109 Alcobendas-Madrid-Spain www.dichroma-photography.com ALLEN GINSBERG BEAT MEMORIES "I do my sketching and observing with the camera." Allen Ginsberg, 1993 One of the most visionary writers of his generation and author of the celebrated poem Howl, Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) was also a photographer. From 1953 until 1963 he made numerous, often exuberant portraits of himself and his friends, including the Beat writers William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, and Jack Kerouac. Eager to capture "certain moments in eternity," as he wrote, he kept his camera by his side when he was at home or traveling around the world. For years Ginsberg's photographs languished among his papers. When he finally rediscovered them in the 1980s, he reprinted them, adding handwritten inscriptions Inspired by his earlier work, he also began to photograph again, recording longtime friends and new acquaintances. Ginsberg's photographs form a vivid portrait of the Beat Generation, a term that came to describe a group of young people who rebelled against the materialism and conformity of middle-class America and embraced a lifestyle that promoted freedom, sexual openness, spontaneity, and speed. Yet Ginsberg's photographs are far more than historical documents. The same qualities that governed his poetry—intense observation of the world, deep appreciation for the beauty of the vernacular, and faith in intuitive expression—also permeate his photographs. Drawing on the most common form of photography, the snapshot, he created spontaneous, uninhibited pictures of ordinary events to celebrate and preserve what he called "the sacredness of the moment." With their captions, which often reflect on the passage of time, Ginsberg's photographs are both records and recollections of an era. In the first scholarly exhibition of American poet Allen Ginsberg's photographs, all facets of his work in photography will be explored. Some 50 works on display will range from the 1950s "drugstore" prints to his now celebrated portraits of Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, snapshots of Ginsberg himself taken just before he achieved literary fame, and his later portraits of the Beats and other friends made in the 1980s and 1990s. Ginsberg (1926–1997) started taking photographs in 1953 when he purchased a small, secondhand Kodak camera. For the next decade he captured numerous intimate shots of himself as well as his friends and lovers. He abandoned photography in 1963 but returned to it in the early 1980s. Although Ginsberg's photographs form a compelling portrait of the Beat and counterculture generation from the 1950s to the 1990s, his pictures are far more than mere historical documents. The same ideas that inform his poetry—an intense observation of the world, a deep appreciation of the beauty of the vernacular, a celebration of the sacredness of the present, and a faith in intuitive expression—also permeate his photography. © Allen Grinsberg Peter Orlovsky, c.1955 diChroma photography Paseo de los Parques, 27-8B 28109 Alcobendas-Madrid-Spain www.dichroma-photography.com .
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